In 1998 the Swedish Socialist Government initiated a project in order to promote economic growth and to end the discriminating social and ethnic segregation in the greater city regions of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. One of the goals of the project was and still is to promote political participation in 24 of the poorest areas of the three cities. In a quantitative analysis I evaluate whether or not the project so far has been successful in promoting a specific part of political participation, i.e. electoral participation in communal elections. The results of the 24 poor city areas are compared with a group of 14 likewise poor city areas of major swedish cities.According to my hypothesis, general improvements of the socio-economic status of poor city areas ought to generate positive effects on electoral participation in communal elections.

This essay is a qualitative study concerned with questions about disability. I set out from a definition of disability which highlights non-disabled peoples´ participation in making a disabled person ?the Other?. My aim is to contribute to an understanding of the experiences of disabled people as well as problemize the way that normality and disability is socially constructed. The empirical material of the essay consists of qualitative interviews with disabled men and women and the essay is written with a critical perspective.

In this essay, the aim is to study the role the politicians play in relation to the people they represent. This is manly a theoretically study, which focus is on the theories behind the way we choose to identify the role of politicians. We ascribe different underlying values to the role of politicians and as a result from these different values a conflict can arise. Two central terms in my discussion are the way the politicians represent people's values and meanings combined to the possibilities for the people to hold the politicians responsible. Depending on which ethic values you put to the role, you have different views about how the politicians should act.

Abstract:The purpose of this study is to examine what actually makes Russia an incomplete democracy, despite of all the formal democratic institutions and legal democratic rights.The research method used for this essay has been qualitative case study, which strives to answer two research questions: Which democratic principles are not respected in Russia? How does the executive power control the political arena? The theoretical framework used for this study consists of a model based on Dahls Polyarchy theory and the Rule of Law concept. The conclusions points out that very little have formally changed in Russia regarding democratic rights and the constitution. The democratic decline is due to political manoeuvres and undue political influence. There is no proper division of power and the executive powers are not controlled by a system of checks and balances.

This thesis focuses on how sewdish politicians try to argue to get other EU-countries to accept a larger responsibility for refugees. Since the war in Iraq broke out in 2003 there have been a great increse in the number of refugees arriving to Europe. Sweden have accepted a very large part of these refugees. This have sparked a debate in Sweden aboute how reasonable it is that sweden accepts a proportionaly much larger number of refugees than other countries within the EU. The swedish gouvernment policy is that responisbility for refugees and migration is something that should be shared by all members of the union.

As companies exert themselves to find new ways of achieving market dominance and stronger brands, the phenomenon co-branding has become increasingly popular. By cooperation between two different firms the combined effects can result in synergies not only on the balance sheet, but even through softer values such as Brand recognition, equity and larger market share. Recently the fashion company H&M launched a collection together with the esteemed fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects the collaboration had on consumer?s attitudes towards the two brands.

Syftet med förevarande uppsats är kort och koncist att pröva huruvida vi kan hitta spår av realistiska teoribildningar i de yttranden och argumentationslinjer som förekom inom lyckta dörrar i Vita huset vid tidpunkten för Kubakrisen 1962. Mer specifikt ämnar vi att försöka hitta spår av de teoribildningar som brukar benämnas defensiv och offensiv realism..

This essay deals with the question of lines of development within the politics in the rural municipality of Nyed 1950-1962. The aim is to explore how local politics and policies were handled from two perspectives. Firstly the issue of conflict and consensus or majority rule and consensus. Here Arend Lijphard's theory of majority and consensus provides a theoretical base for the essay. Secondly the aim is to explore the actions of the local politicians with regards to leisure time policies to find out whether or not they ideologically belonged to the concept of ?folkhemmets kommun? by Ulla Ekström von Essen.The source material for this essay has been the minutes from the two major bodies of local politics in Nyed, kommunalfullmäktige and kommunalnämnden.

Around the world governments reach out to their emigrant population, embracingthem as part of the nation, expecting their economic contribution. The aim of thisthesis is to examine the political strategy and governmental activities of ElSalvador with the purpose to include emigrants in the nation building project. Themain question is what consequences this has for the significance of citizenship.This case study is based on the theoretical framework of external citizenshipwhich is a new fenomena emanating from states growing interest of theirexpanding diaspora. It divides external citizenship in two parts; a legal dimensionand a practiced identity.I find that as the economic potential of salvadoreans abroad increase, theSalvadorean government makes institutional changes to tie emigrants to thenationstate. This results in the possibility for salvadoreans to remain citizens intheir country of origin, practicing their salvadorean identity at the same time asthey naturalize abroad.

In recent years, the right-wing extremist site Avpixlat (?Unveiled?) and the anti-racist blog Inte rasist, men... (?Not a racist, but??, IRM) have established themselves as political actors and platforms for political discussion in Sweden. However, we know very little about them and their impact on democracy.

This thesis examines the reasons behind the Swedish migration policy reform which led to a replacement of the Aliens Appeal Board by the Migration Court. This introduced a two-party procedure, oral hearings and enhanced transparency. It was designed to guarantee the rule of law and to thwart political arbitrariness.The transfer of power from representative institutions to judiciaries is referred to as judicialization, and the Migration Courts may be considered a typical example of this phenomenon. However, this can be questioned. The straggling nature of the term implies everything and anything unless cautiously defined.

The aim of this study is to get a better understanding of the Iranian regime. My theory is that the Iranian regime is a semi-dictatorship, based on the soul fact that semi-competetive elections take place. The main question this thesis tries to answer is what characterizes the political construction of the Iranian regime and by what means does it implement its political goals. In trying to answer this question the case of Iran is applied to four specific typologies being, semi-dictatorship, military rule, single party rule and personal rule. The aim has not been to categorically analyze if the Iranian regime matches one typology or the other perfectly, as this is seldom the case when it comes to typologies.After analysis of the four typologies, the conclusion is that the Iranian regime utilizes semi-competitive elections to give a guise of democracy, as is in line with a semi-dictatorship.

Lack of political interest and will to deal with human rights violations carried out under the civil- military dictatorship, has characterized the transition and post-transition in Uruguay. The systematic use of torture, arbitrary imprisonments and forced disappearances in the relatively small country created a culture of fear that has been present through out the post-transition phase. Human rights groups have been central actors in the fight for truth and justice and against impunity. This study analyzes how these groups multiple democracy-building functions have contributed to democratic development. It also analyses how the democracy-building functions have been constrained by the political context.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

This thesis analyzes the media debates generated by the election of Omar Mustafa to the board of the social democratic party, and the appointment of the conservative Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Svantesson. More specifically, the aim is to analyze newspaper material through a discourse analyze, to see if and how religious affiliation effects the possibilities to act as a political representative. Theories of othering and intersectionality serve as theoretical points of departure. Further, chains of equivalence from Laclau and Mouffe?s discourse theory are used to study how categories as ?us? and ?the other? are constructed in the material, and how these processes of categorization relate to the intersection of religion, gender and ethnicity.